CK-12 offers a large variety of lessons and resources in STEM topics mostly geared for sixth grade and higher. Choose to access the site as a student or teacher to begin. Search by specific content or to find standards-aligned flexbook textbooks. Download flexbooks in several formats such as PDF or mobi and epub format for use on Kindle and e-readers. Create an account and add flexbooks to your list. Add your own files and resources. Specific topic searches provide links to information from flexbooks as well as available study aids, activities, and assessments.

In the Classroom

Introduce CK-12 to your students (and parents) on your interactive whiteboard and demonstrate ways to use the site at home. Be sure to create a link to the site on your class website or blog for easy access at any time. Create an account and upload your own resources and activities to create your own flexbooks for use with students. CK-12 is available in many languages. Use this site with your ESL/ELL students as a supplement to classroom resources.

This New York Times site addresses many classroom needs. Scroll down the main section to find current event articles, photos, polls, and more. Find lesson plans by category, a student opinion section, contests, a daily news quiz, and timely articles connecting current events to thinking questions. Find many opportunities for a quick learning game or to express your opinion. There is even a student crossword. This site is frequently updated and includes a wide variety of subjects.

In the Classroom

Share this site on your class web page for students to find challenges or activities. Substitute teachers can always find an appropriate current events or vocabulary/writing activity if there are no lesson plans. English, social studies, and gifted teachers will want to explore the many lesson ideas that draw on current news stories. Find many prompts for student opinion blogs at this site. If you are beginning the process of integrating technology, have students create blogs sharing their learning and understanding using Pen.io, reviewed here. This blog creator requires no registration.

Create stories based on Tweets, photos, and videos. To create a story, go to the editor and create a headline and description. Then choose media to use for the search. Choices include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Instagram, and much more. You can search multiple social networks from one place and drag elements into your story. Re-order elements by dragging them and add text as needed. Storify lets you take those little bits of information shared over time and turn them into a story. The site also has a search element so you can explore Storify creations by featured topics or what is currently popular. Login is necessary to save and share Storify creations. As with any social network site used by the general public, adults should ALWAYS preview just before sharing with young people. The featured examples appear benign but could change any time.

In the Classroom

Use Storify to create weekly stories of tweets, pictures, and videos from your classroom that can be sent home to parents. Create a story of learning based on a collaboration between classrooms as a way to chronicle and reflect on the collaboration. Build a semester or year-long "story" of your class tweets and activities as a sort of online scrapbook that can be shared with families. Invite other classrooms to take part in writing a collaborative story 140 characters at a time using Twitter. Create a story for any classroom topic such as current events, American History, famous mathematicians, or astronomy. Search for tweets from a favorite author or politician to tell his/her story.

This very simple tool creates quick image+message greetings that can be shared via email or by url. Enter a search term to find images or videos, drag your chosen image, and type in text below. Click "send" to open your email program to send the link or copy/paste the link to view it directly on the Internet. The url for each custom image and greeting combination shows clearly below the box where you type the message. Highlight it and press Ctrl+ C (or Command +C on a Mac) to copy it. Here is a sample "Phreeting" created in less than 15 seconds. Although not clearly stated on this tool, phreetings searches use Creative Commons images from Flickr. Clicking on the image in the "phreeting" opens the image page on Flickr. As with any search tool, it is possible to search for inappropriate topics, so make sure you have a clear policy about what students may/may not search and what the consequences are. Note: if you do not copy the url as you create, you will NOT be able to find it again!

In the Classroom

Hold an image captioning contest on projector/interactive whiteboard at the start of class about verbs by searching "run" or another action word. As a quick formative assessment, have students create a Phreeting using an image of a curriculum concept (a leaf, for example), with a greeting that explains about photosynthesis. During poetry month, have students compose a haiku message to accompany an image they find. Write and share similes and metaphors using image prompts and share the links on a class wiki. Share the links to the many quick projects on your class web page. Mark this quickie tool in your Favorites on your teacher public page so students can use it to send greetings and questions by email any time. Younger students/classes can make "Phreetings" to send to school helpers, visiting firemen, and others. ESL/ELL, speech/language, or world language students can practice writing simple sentences about an image they find and share the result via email or a link you collect on a class web page. If you have a class Flickr account, search for your own photos and have students add captions explaining the activity pictured and send them to the principal or parents. At holiday season, send Phreetings as practice writing informal "letters" or thank you notes.

Join Mobileread, a social networking site for eBooks. View as a guest, or join to be able to submit a nomination or comment to a discussion thread. Find free ebooks, eBook lending libraries, eBook reviews, Notable eBook uploads, and poetry. Discover latest technology, audio books, hardware reviews, and accessories. Conversion, reading software, and authoring software fulfill your Ebook needs. Get mobile links, Ebook blogs, web clipping software, or Mobile Mobilereads. The option to choose a language is available to accommodate for ELL/ESL readers.Be aware: This site has a lot of public interaction. Either explore the site yourself for whole group activities or monitor carefully .This site includes advertising.

Add a captivating or informative speech bubble to a picture from your computer or that you find (legally) online. Make the picture private and share with others. The public pictures on the home page change frequently, so be sure to check this just before SHARING with your students. Some of the captions could be considered offensive to some. . Be sure to make all of your pictures private.

In the Classroom

The possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Caption the homework directions on your teacher web page. Ask your students to create captions for class photos for all sorts of reasons. Use photos or digital drawings from your classroom, such as pictures taken during any hands-on activity. Have students draw in a paint program, save the file, and then add a caption. Spice up research projects about historic figures or important scientists. Have literary characters "talk" as part of a project. In a government class, add captions to photos explaining politicians' major platform planks during election campaigns. Caption the steps to math problem solving. Even primary students can make captions of an animal talking about his habitat or a "community helper" talking about his/her role. Make visual vocabulary/terminology sentences with an appropriate character using the term in context (a beaker explaining how it is different from a flask?). Students could also take pictures of themselves doing a lab and then caption the pictures to explain the concepts. This would be a great first day project (introducing yourself and breaking the ice). Share the class captions on your class web page or wiki! Leave directions to your class (for when a substitute is there). Use at back to school night to show your humorous side to the parents. Have students make talking photos of themselves as a visual tour of their new classroom for parents attending back to school night.

Find a comprehensive list of sources for eBooks and ways to use them. Dr. Terry Cavanaugh has a wide variety of information dedicated to using eBooks in the classroom. Find links for online libraries, news, blogs, history, platforms, features, accommodations, samples, and borrowing guidelines. A section entitled educational applications, features creating eBooks with PowerPoint, digital Big Books, and eBooks in higher education. Classroom lesson ideas along with reading strategies help you incorporate eBooks into your curriculum. A link to the Florida recommended eBook list is also given. Find advice on video book talks, Book trading with eBooks, and an online Book cataloging library resource tool. A section for books promoting eBooks use in the classrooms lists resources to make you proficient. Find samples for creating eBooks to fit into your own classroom needs.

In the Classroom

Capture your student's interest in technology and reading with eBooks. Join the latest craze to promote life long reading. Join blogs to see what other teachers are doing. Use as a parent resource to help promote interest. Use as background information while writing grants or proposals for technology grants. Be sure to investigate the variety of classroom ideas for using technology and eBooks.

Consider incorporating technology into your literature circles. You might want to start with a whole class novel, having students listen to certain chapters using an eBook. Have the "discussion director" for the group post questions on Edmodo reviewed here with the understanding that they may answer the questions on Edmodo, but these are "discussion starters" for the circle meeting in class.

Bring some creativity into your literature lessons using this site that goes way beyond rote answers. Choose skills from drop boxes, identify one or two stories to analyze/compare, choose your thinking skills, and decide what the final product will be. For example, "Substitute The Giver's setting for A Wrinkle In Time's setting. Dramatize how this would affect A Wrinkle In Time's plot. Create a skit," or "Rearrange Oh The Places You Will Go's plot. Analyze how this would affect its tone. Create a photo essay ." Choose whatever book(s) are relevant to your class. Experiment with different ideas easily until coming up with the perfect response question for your class or individualize easily for different student responses. The creator of this site does admit that it is a rather new site with a few kinks. His email is provided if you see any issues. Our review team noticed nothing unusual, and all options were functioning properly, at the time of this review.

In the Classroom

Use this site to create unique lessons and literature responses that require critical thinking responses from your students. Share with students and allow them to create their own response at the end of a unit when comparing two books or reflecting on one book. Use this site as a resource for incorporating different levels of Blooms Taxonomy into your classroom and for differentiation among students. Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here.

Create various types of graphs and charts - easily! Input data quickly, and explore multiple ways to show the data using the various types of graphs available. Easily see the relationships between the data as you play with the graphic. Note: Take (and save) a screen shot of your chart as not all charts have been saved correctly. Once a chart has been published, it can no longer be edited. There is a short video tutorial on the homepage explaining how to use this site. This site uses Java.

In the Classroom

You will want to play with this tool before using it in class. Use anywhere numerical data is collected and is best shown in a chart. Collect data in a science, survey, or math class and display it using different graphs to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using each graph type. Use for quick creation and sharing of created graphs. Create charts together easily on an interactive whiteboard when introducing the different types. Have students operate the board while others offer instructions on what to do next. Use graphs to portray different sets of data about a topic in a new and unique way. Use this tool to create graphs and charts for presentations and reports. Make quick charts students can share with others such as "How I spend my time" and "Places I have visited." During political campaign seasons, create charts to better visualize what the pollsters are saying.

Use this simple QR code site to type a 100 character message and hear it read by a voice synthesizer when the code is scanned. You can also read/record your own voice. Type or dictate text and click to generate a QR code that will say the text aloud. Simply type text or click the microphone to dictate text. Use a QR reader on a mobile device or on a school computer or laptop in order to prepare the generated QR code. Try scanning the audible QR code here audible QR code here to hear an example we created. At the time of this review, the languages available included Portugese, Spanish, French, Japanese, English, and Italian.

In the Classroom

The use of QR Codes in the classroom is limitless, and adding an audio option makes them even more accessible. QR Codes can be used with portable devices or webcams on desktop computers. Create QR codes for assignments with quick directions, rubric information, editing instructions, or web resources. This would be great fun for a digital scavenger hunt. Embed QR codes that "tell" important audible information for your students or parents on a classroom website. Create a QR code to go home on student planners reminding them to do their homework. Add a QR Code to tell your schedule or learning goals. Share QR code audio announcements of special events to your families. For study guides, provide QR codes for answers so students can self-check. Create a living history museum of any time period, with simple explanations or fast facts. For vocabulary words in English or any other language, provide correct pronunciations or sample sentences and definitions of each word. If you work with non-readers or students learning English or another language, prepare recordings that will play when students scan the QR code with an iTouch or mobile phone. Have students practice spoken language skills and create their own audible QR codes for others to try. With very young children, you can put a QR code on signs labeling classroom objects and have them scan with mobile device cameras to hear (as well as see) the words for the object. This could be very helpful for nonreaders or English language learners.

Use this resource to see what the NYTimes, Wall street Journal, or any other source (Twitter account) is currently tweeting about. A blend between Twitter and word clouds, this resource can provide current information about many topics. Enter a Twitter username in the lower left to begin. Click on a circle in the word cloud to see the tweets listed along the side. Try entering @teachersfirst to see an example.

In the Classroom

This would be fantastic projected on a whiteboard (or projector) for the class to see. Use this resource by entering a Twitter username (such as a politician's) to stay up to date about what they are discussing (or to realize the overuse of certain talking points!) Enter an author's user name to follow current discussions. Use this resource over a period of several weeks to identify the changing trends or changes in stories over time. Follow any Twitter name that can shed light on any academic topic for use in a class. Does your class use twitter? Enter the username(s) to create a word cloud of what your class has done. Use the word cloud and Tweets to reflect on what has been learned in the class. Follow what a famous person or writer is tweeting. See this list of tweeting authors for some possibilities.

Fill in the blanks of online forms to create instant poems of many types. Even though the site looks "plain vanilla," the results are great fun! Click a poem form from the ten options. The options include more traditional cinquains, haiku, and more. Once you complete the form, click to create the instant poem and display the results on the page. Keep a copy by printing or -- even better-- by copy/pasting into a document or other online tool for sharing. Make any day better with poetry! The page is very simple, but the results are inspiring.

In the Classroom

Share this page with students during a unit on poetry or to inspire a poetic look at content in any class: maybe science or even math! Allow students to choose from all the poetry forms or from a selection of options. Use poetry as a way for students with verbal-linguistic strengths to explain challenging concepts and terms. In elementary classes, the simple "about me" and basic figure of speech poems will introduce students to poetry and figurative language. Be sure to keep electronic copies of the results, not just paper print outs. Copy/paste the poems students create into an online class literary magazine (on a wiki or blog) or have students illustrate and read poems.Have students use Flipsnack, reviewed here, to turn their PDFs into an online book, There is even a page-turning effect! If you only have a word doc or image use CutePDF, reviewed here, to convert them to PDF format.This is a perfect activity for Poetry Month!

Comments

For the phobic poet, this should grease the wheels!Patricia, NJ, Grades: 6 - 12

This amazing site contains thousands of lesson plans and activities for students of all ages (ages 3-16+). Simple registration is required with an email address and password. Choose a grade range to search for activities. Note that terminology for lessons is from the UK, so you may need to "translate" for U.S. curriculum topics and spelling. Choose subjects then further categorized into topics. Many links include complete lessons plans with items such as PowerPoint lessons, videos, quizzes, worksheets, and much more. Other options on the site allows you to save items as favorites, follow other users, save searches, and upload materials. Another offering is the "Whole School" category that includes resources for school needs such as behavior and assemblies.

YouTube Teachers and the related YouTube EDU form an education-oriented area of YouTube that categorizes videos into subjects for easy retrieval. YouTube is a vast online video library. You upload, view, share, and comment on content found on the site. Videos found on the full YouTube range from commercial to educational content. YouTube often has questionable content so is blocked in many schools. Some schools block YouTube simply because streaming video "hogs" network resources. If inappropriate content is your administration's main concern, YouTube offers a way your tech department can configure a limited access channel. See the explanation video and related information to share with the tech department here.

YouTube is very valuable to educators looking for great educational content. There are videos for early elementary concepts like safety up through college level courses. YouTube has the ability to stream content into channels based upon your viewing preferences, and videos are easily marked as "favorites" to find in your history. It offers suggested channels based on your watching history including trending and popular videos. Parents can filter out objectionable content and comments using Safety Mode -- which is often disabled.

Create a YouTube channel to collect videos for easy access by students. Upload teacher-created videos for your class to your channel. Do you know a great video not featured on You Tube EDU? Suggest it for the EDU collection.

In the Classroom

Use YouTube Teachers/EDU to create a channel of appropriate videos for your class. Consider creating your own videos of content that can be uploaded to your YouTube channel. Use videos to introduce topics, dig deeper into the content, and review for exams. You may even want to try "flipping" you class so students view the video information as homework and practice with concepts in class the next day. Students can be given the task of finding suitable videos that take the content deeper for better understanding. Create video guides that go with the videos or quizzes that can be given at the end. Assign videos for students to view and give them time to use the information to create a presentation for the rest of the class.

Try Duck Duck Go, an open source search engine that protects your privacy by not tracking your search habits. Without tracking, you get true search results not tied to your personality or search habits. Duck Duck Go shows search results in a unique way. The site is very clean and uncluttered. Results of your search term can provide a definition or other general information, labels on links that are an official site, and more. On the right side, find additional search ideas. Clicking on terms will add that term to your original search term and generate new results. Go to the settings page to change privacy settings. Change result settings, color settings, look and feel of the search results page, and interface settings also. Search for calculations, dates and events, and more. Be sure to click on Goodies under the search box to find an easy way to enter search terms. Instead of copying and pasting these search strings, change the information you need to alter in the box and press Go! An unbelievably easy way to search!

In the Classroom

Provide a link to Duck Duck Go on your class website or as a start page on a classroom computer. Use Duck Duck Go to teach about search strategies and help students think of search terms. When discussing searching in class, compare Duck Duck Go to other search engines, noticing the differences between the search experience and results between the various search engines. Be sure to discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and reliability of the search results with each of the various search engines. Be sure to point out the additional search terms and how these terms can provide more targeted search results. Try a game where students predict what other terms might show up from a given starting search. This will teach the mental flexibility to realize what else the search engine might "think" you mean. For example, if we enter "apple," what other terms might we see?

Poster My Wall is a simple online tool to create posters. Make and download simple posters for free and without registration. Note that free downloads are not high-quality print resolution, so they may appear "fuzzy" if printed in large formats. The simple tools look and feel like a computer program. Choose or upload photos, backgrounds, Flickr photos, and clip-art. You can move and re-size using the floating symbols. Register to be able to email products to friends. (Registration requires email, but there is no waiting for a confirmation.) Obtain the poster url by emailing to yourself. (In the email, click "view larger" to get the link). Check out the reviewer sample here .

In the Classroom

Have students create posters to demonstrate understanding. After an assigned reading, have them create a poster to explain the text. Have students email their finished product to you as an informal assessment. Create a quick presentation of the best posters to share with the class when discussing the reading the next day. Offer posters as one of several options for students to share what they know with you and their peers. Of course, you will want to require proper credit for any images students use in their posters. Use student-made posters to reinforce class rules at the start of the year or to visually display concepts such as branches of government or story elements.

Send email messages as video with this easy to use tool. Sometimes information is just too hard to convey in an email. Perhaps the information is too complicated to type out or it is hard to relay the tone in a message. Sending an email with a video message helps to take care of these problems. To use the site you will need to create a free account. Once the account is created, just login, record or upload your video message, and send. Your recipient will receive an email letting them know they have a new video message. Just one click will get them to the message for viewing.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Have fun with this website, and make classwork more interesting for students! Create a classroom email account, and have students send short summaries of reading passages instead of writing reports. If your students have school email accounts, send a short video message each week including reminders of upcoming activities and reminders for items to bring to class. Teacher mentors can send encouraging videos to mentees with suggestions and classroom tips. Administrators can send videos to staff with reminders of staff meetings or upcoming due dates. Send a short video to parents with upcoming class information such as conferences, field trips, and testing dates. Appoint a new video master each week to record the homework reminders for the class. That is one classroom "job" elementary students will love to have, especially those who like being the center of attention.

Use this memorable service to store your emails waiting to be sent. This site will deliver your emails after a given number of years. Emails can be sent to any address and can be sent in 1 year increments from 1-100 years! Just type in your name, email, the recipient's email, and your message. Choose how many years to freeze the email and you are done. Of course, there are many limitations: will these email addresses be available 100 years from now? What happens if you change your mind? Although the site would be much more useful if the dates could be personalized more to specific dates or months, it might be worth using for simple items.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

A good use for this would be for emails to yourself with reminders for annual events, not for personal use. Send an email to yourself at the end of a unit with information on resources that worked, classroom tips, where to find additional information, etc. Set up emails when you receive your annual schedule with reminders before each event. Use this tool as a writing prompt. Ask students to write an email to themselves as a high school senior or even to themselves at the end of the next year to see if they have met personal goals such as New Years resolutions. Have your entire "graduating" elementary class write a class time capsule about what was important to them in the year 20XX and "send" it to themselves, set to deliver at the end of middle or high school.

Many Book.net is a free web site offering eBooks from Project Gutenburg, The Human Genome Project and audio books, and creative commons works. Using author, title, genre, language, and recommended eBooks find your favorite reads. Join an RSS feed or Twitter to receive updates of the latest eBooks. Submit your work for consideration and possibly to be added to the selections. Register to create your own bookshelf with eBooks you have read. Keep it private, share as an embedded URL, or share on the actual site. Find conversion tools to help with any formats required. Explore the devices available to read the eBooks.

In the Classroom

Fill your classroom library with all the ebooks from the classics. Encourage your students to keep bookshelves of the books they read, while you make your bookshelf available to use for assignment choices or options. Encourage the continual exploration of author, time period, subject matter, and genre. Enchant your voracious and gifted readers alike!

At this publishing site for secondary students, you have many opportunities to learn the craft, view other writers in action, have work critiqued, and interact with other student writers. You can take a master class with featured writers that include conversations with authors discussing their challenges and triumphs. There is a chat forum to post work and get input from fellow students with suggestions for revision (participation in chat requires registration to the site; however, the chat logs can be viewed without registration). An online portfolio can be created after registration on the site. The "Authors in Action" section is a wonderful resource to view short videos of student authors performing their own work and is sorted by genres.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Share videos from the site with students when discussing the writing process. The master classes are perfect for use on interactive whiteboards or a projector as a way of starting classroom discussions on the writing process and different techniques and methods used by authors. Have students read their own finished works of writing and share them using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here. If you do Writers Workshop in your classroom, use videos and information from the site to demonstrate writing and critiquing methods.